Friday, August 3, 2012

Curious Incident of the Restaurant in the nighttime

It was like one of the many instances when I was travelling
to Bangalore, and like most times I was about to reach before time to the bus
stand. In fact this time I was an hour earlier and was travelling light as I
was only going for one day.

So I asked to the auto driver if I could get to eat
something nearby, he said “Haan bahaiya paas mae kaafi hotel hai”. I asked him
to drop me there instead of the bus stand, got down after a while, paid him and
starting walking towards where I saw the crowd was. Hyderabad’s government bus
stand (I always travel by government buses or at least wherever I can help it)
is in a place called Afzalgunj and it’s a predominantly Muslim place as the
name suggests. And you can feel it by the way people are dressed, by the sign
boards in Urdu, by the whole green coloredness of the place. Ironically that
street I started walking into was called ‘Ram Mandir Road’ (I came to know this
later). But as I said it is predominantly Muslim place near to the bus stand where
people of all religions come and go; and there is this Hotel named ‘Jai Maa
Durga Hotel’ on that street and it is so overtly and in your face Hindu that
you almost get jarred by it. If the name isn’t enough for you it has lot of big
pictures of Hindu Deities hung over the counter which is quite visible from the
street and on top of that it has Gayatri Mantra playing in loop very loudly. So
that is what that place’s USP is, that it is a Hindu place in a Muslim
locality, it doesn’t compete on price, it was expensive than the place I ate;
it is not clean or orderly, that is why I decided to give it a skip; it is just
pretty garishly Hindu. There are a few Muslim cafes on the other side of street
which look dingy, Irani Hotels as they are called here and their owners eye
ball me while I’m walking down the street looking left and right for a place to
eat.

They know I’m not their customer; I’m dressed in a grey t
shirt, blue jeans, expensive shoes , clean shaven, short hair and I could be
any one, any religion, an atheist maybe, but they know, somehow they know. I’m
never more aware of my religion than this point, my last name, the fact that
I’m allowed to worship an idol and I’m not circumcised. Anyways after a few
paces I come by this place called Hotel Nandini which is a lodge which advertises
“Restaurant Attached. South Indian North Indian Chinese”. I know these kinds of
restaurants, I trust these kinds of restaurants. Order a Butter Roti and Dal
Fry here and you can never go wrong.

So I enter this one intending to do just that. But it’s a
busy place, the table I took is in one corner and a place like this doesn’t
want to score very high on service and waiter response time. So I sit there
waiting for someone to notice my waving hand or hear my cry of “Bhaiya”, which
automatically labels me as a North Indian. I could have said Guru to be from
Bangalore, Thambi to be from Chennai, Boss to be from Bombay, Dada, Babu or
Dost or anything else. But being from where I am I start with Bhaiya. And
nobody notices me or at least bothers with me for some time. Till then I hear
two waiters being called from the manager, one was Aslam and other one was some
common South Indian Hindu name which I don’t remember now. I decide in that
instance whom to call and shout ‘Aslam’ as soon as he is dismissed by the manager.
My decision was based on the fact that Aslam being Muslim has a good chance of
understanding Hindi and thus it would be easier to explain to him what I want.
And I am correct, I say “Bhaiya ek Dal Fry aur ek Butter Roti laga dena” and he
nods and asks “Mineral Water chahiye aapko?” I reply in the affirmative and he
walks away.

I look around and I see most people are eating that fixed
thali or meals as they are called here with their hands, they are mixing curd,
rasam, some kind of Pulusu into rice and eating with their hands and making, to
me, a mess of it like South Indians usually do and I look at that with the
derision North Indians usually do.

A curious incident happens at this time, Aslam trying to
practice his newly learned Telugu asks another waiter standing near the fridge
‘Okaa Bottle Ichindi’ and everybody starts laughing at him (he should have said
‘Okaa Bottle Kavali’, and even I know he’s wrong) and he gets embarrassed and
looks around for some sympathy, his eyes meet mine and I smile at him knowing
how does it feel to make a mess of a simple statement in a foreign language. I
have made a mess of Kannada, Bengali and many other languages in my life. I
know the kind of alienation he feels at this moment just because he doesn’t
know the local language. It’s not his fault, he wasn’t born here, he wasn’t
taught this is in school, his father and mother didn’t speak this language to
him when they first tried to make him talk, he didn’t watch any movies in this
language; it’s not his fault and he knows it, but he feels embarrassed
nonetheless. He smiles back at me and gets back with his work, feeling slightly
reassured that there is at least one more guy in this room who is as incapable
as him in speaking Telugu, that he is not alone, that somehow we are bonded.
And then the words of my mother flash into my head that she had said to me
probably more than 15 years before.

And it is going to sound like Nirupa Roy from a 1970s movie
but I’m quoting that line Verbatim “Beta dharm kabhi jodta nahi hai, dharm
hamesha todta hai”

2 comments:

nicely written, loved the way you have built up the ambience of the location. language and religion does divide more than unite, but the alienation that you described, and like you described, can be used as a binding force too.

About Me

Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt use it — don't cheat with it. -
Ernest Hemingway